West Ham signing Lucas Paqueta is Brazil regular who loves to dance

There will be a huge sense of anticipation when Lucas Paqueta puts away his first goal for West Ham.

The Brazilian has become as renowned for his smooth dance move celebrations as his unhurried midfield play and creative spirit.

When he netted for his old club Lyon against Paris Saint-Germain last season, Paqueta strutted down the byline as his team-mates guffawed in delight.

Social media videos have shown him ‘flossing’ in the dressing room and improvising modern takes of the Macarena and Night Fever. West Ham’s Tiktok channel certainly won’t be short of content.

‘I love to dance, I’ve always loved it. My celebration is my trademark, I’ve always done that – it’s a funk step. I love funk,’ Paqueta once told L’Equipe in an interview.

But while we can expect some terrific post-goal entertainment, West Ham’s new club record signing has been brought in to bring a Samba rhythm to their attacking play.

Paqueta – who could ultimately cost the Hammers £51million – offers David Moyes versatility, elegance with the ball at his feet and a decent eye for goal.

West Ham achieved a top seven finish last season and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Europa League – but David Moyes will hope Paqueta, a shoo-in for Brazil at the World Cup in Qatar, can take them to new heights.

But the Scottish manager may also need to be a calming influence on his new charge as he adjusts to the more demanding environment of the Premier League.

Paqueta has been guilty of showboating in the past – in a game against Troyes last season he received a yellow card for attempting to humiliate an opponent by rainbow flicking the ball over his head.

As Paqueta’s Brazil team-mate Richarlison discovered on Sunday, when his uncalled-for keepie-uppies with Tottenham leading Nottingham Forest resulted in Neco Williams cleaning him out, these things are not tolerated in England.

He also clashed with Lyon team-mate Houssem Aouar over who was the designated penalty taker when the team was 4-0 down at Rennes last November. There have been allegations of petulance.

But if Moyes can keep Paqueta, 25, on the straight and narrow, West Ham potentially have someone whose craft and invention can have them knocking on the door of the top four in the years ahead.

Paqueta offers West Ham a few positional options – he played for Lyon as a conventional No 10, on the right side and also as a false nine further forward.

‘I feel good in all positions in the middle of the pitch,’ the player has said.

That was in more of a 4-3-3 set-up under first Rudi Garcia and then Peter Bosz, whereas West Ham usually go 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2, so he’s likely to occupy the No 10 role and try to seek out space in which to operate.

One particular strength is finding gaps amid the chaos of the game to collect the ball and run with it, before usually picking the optimal short pass.

It comes as little surprise that Barcelona legends Xavi and Andres Iniesta were early inspirations growing up.

In Ligue 1, he enjoyed a significant influence in the attacking third, scoring 11 goals and contributing seven assists in the league and Europa League last season.

They are good returns considering Lyon underwhelmed in Ligue 1, finishing only eighth to miss out on European football, while it was the Hammers who knocked them out of Europe at the quarter-final stage.

There is clearly some bitterness at Paqueta’s departure, with Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas taking a swipe at West Ham by saying he thought the player would join a ‘big club.’

But the fact he is going to the London Stadium – which is set to stage Europa Conference League football this time around – just highlights the appeal and financial muscle of Premier League clubs over other rival European leagues.

London as a city no doubt also appealed to Paqueta, his wife Maria Eduarda Fournier and their two young boys, Benicio and Filippo.

The Paqueta name comes from the tiny, car-free island in Guanabara Bay near Rio de Janeiro where the player – whose real name is Lucas Tolentino Coelho de Lima – grew up.

Paqueta Island sounds like paradise in the modern age, given its 3,000 or so residents get around on bikes or horse-drawn carriages.

But it hardly made life easy when Paqueta’s love of futsal growing up led to a convoluted journey to practice sessions for the kid and his grandfather Mirao.

They would leave at 9am, take a boat and then a bus to the stadium in Rio itself and then return on the last boat at midnight.

Mirao always had confidence Lucas and his older brother Matheus would make it in the game and so it proved when he signed for Flamengo at the age of 10.

Unfortunately, during those academy years, Paqueta’s tiny stature – he was only 5ft tall and slender in build – saw him bullied by opponents. He would often leave the pitch in tears.

But a timely growth spurt in his teenage years allowed him to compete and his Flamengo debut came in a 2016 State League match at the age of 19.

Paqueta quickly became a teenage star in a Flamengo team that also included Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior and he scored in the Brazilian Cup final at the Maracanã against Cruzeiro.

And it was little surprise when AC Milan swooped ahead of Paris Saint-Germain to sign Paqueta in a deal worth £32m in January 2019.

His time in Milan, however, was characterised by frustration and impatience.

Milan’s managing director Leonardo expected Paqueta to be the new Kaka but though manager Gennaro Gattuso liked him, his short-lived replacement Marco Giampaolo most certainly did not.

It was also a lonely existence for Paqueta – who admitted later he ‘put a lot of pressure’ on himself and had few friends – so his September 2020 switch to Lyon for a cut-price £17m was a wise one.

He thrived there from the outset, quickly establishing a reputation as one of the most exciting players in Ligue 1.

This has coincided with a rapid elevation to prominence with the Brazil national team.

Tite chose him for the standby list at the 2018 World Cup – the youngest on the list – and he went to the 2019 Copa America without featuring much.

But by the time of the 2021 edition, Paqueta was a central figure, scoring the winning goals against Chile in the quarter-final and Peru in the semi-final before they lost to rivals Argentina.

He was involved in all but one match in Brazil’s unbeaten qualification campaign for Qatar 2022 and it’s likely Tite will have him as a starter when the tournament begins.

Hitting the ground running at West Ham will only seal this particular deal, with everyone in claret and blue hoping to see those famous Paqueta dance moves very soon.